Forest transitions in Chinese villages: Explaining community-level variation under the returning forest to farmland program

Abstract

China's Returning Farmland to Forest Program (RFFP) aimed to transform rural landscapes and livelihoods by compensating households for planting trees on retired farmland. The program has been attributed a key role in an apparent forest transition. Studies uncover great local variation in its impacts, but the mechanisms behind them have received little attention. We examine such heterogeneity in 12 communities in northwest Yunnan, assessing the hypothesis that the RFFP catalyzed a state-led forest transition by evaluating the contributions of RFFP implementation and other processes to land cover change. Our dataset combines socioeconomic data from household surveys, focus groups, and intensive interviews with remote sensing data for a linked, cross-scale analysis. Results show no significant relationship between RFFP implementation and community-level vegetation cover change. Between 2000 and 2010, high-elevation communities had larger vegetation gains, while from 2010 to 2014, low-elevation communities had larger gains. Regression analyses and interview data show off-farm labor, tree crop planting, and changing energy sources influenced the rate of community-level vegetation change. This pattern, combining tree crop cultivation with labor outflows, may represent a distinct "policy plantation" pathway of forest gain. Meanwhile, new, high-elevation cash crops may be constraining forest expansion. This analysis suggests limited additionality for the RFFP in this region and highlights how heterogeneous, intersecting land use processes bring uneven forest transitions.

Correlation Analysis between Land Use/Cover Change and Air Pollutants—A Case Study in Wuyishan City

“…Over this period, significant land conversion into forests occurred, resulting in an increase of forest coverage [39]. This effect is likely in response to current policy which focused on restoring cultivated land to forests in China [40][41][42]. Fan et al (2019) further confirmed that the forested areas in the Nanping City has increased, while the area of cultivated land has decreased from 2010 to 2015 [43].…”

Does the “Returning Farmland to Forest Program” Drive Community-Level Changes in Landscape Patterns in China?

“…By 2010, the "linking villages with roads" program was implemented. Roads brought connectivity between communities and markets that facilitated walnut production [38,43]. Other changes in livelihoods during this period include the adoption of cash crops such as runner beans, maca, and costus root, as well as increasing off-farm labor allocation, varying in magnitude across communities.…”

Features, Driving Forces and Transition of the Household Energy Consumption in China: A Review

“…During the past 30 years, policy has always played a critical role in China's social-economic development [115], which is the same regarding its impacts on household energy consumption. Key policies that are driving the household energy consumption in China mainly include the "new normal urbanization policy" [113,114], "returning farmland to forests/grasses program" [116], "natural forest protection program" [117], and "grazing prohibition and enclosure" [64,118], which mainly reduce the biomass energy consumption in China, particularly in the north and northwestern rural regions, and "rural electrification program" [119] which mainly improves the shares of the electricity consumption in rural China. Internationally, these policies could offer good experiences for other developing countries, for instance, the Chinese model of rural electrification projects could serve as an inspiration for other developing countries [120].…”